Trinity Wall Street Grant Received for Beyond These Walls
The
Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan has received a leadership development
grant from Trinity Wall Street for an initiative entitled, Beyond These Walls:
Theological Education for All. The purpose of the grant is to meet the growing
need in communities of faith for well-formed leaders with practical skills for
engaging a changing world.
The
Rev. Canon Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, who serves as the diocesan liaison to this
initiative said, “To be invited into a partnership with this emerging
collective of prophetic theologians and church leaders is a blessing to our
diocese, which has, in our DNA a commitment to recognizing the gifts of all and
the need for accessible, quality theological education and formation.”
In
mid-2020, a group of 8 female- and non-binary- identified professors from 5
denominations gathered to ask, “What would theological education look like if
it were de-colonized, de-commodified, trauma-informed, fallibility-embracing,
and justice-centered?” From their conversations, Beyond These Walls (BTW) was
fashioned.
Beyond
These Walls is the collaborative project of this team of educators, together
with the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan and The Hive
(www.thehiveapiary.com). The collective is developing as-yet-unimagined forms
of theological education to resource emerging leaders in diverse contexts for
which the current model of seminary education has insufficient answers, and
from which many emerging leaders have been left out.
BTW
recognizes the need for innovation in leadership formation to address the needs
of faith communities and honor the gifts already present in populations who
have been traditionally marginalized. It centers the pedagogy of women of
color, who have been organizing along similar lines. It utilizes
strengths-based models of assessment that identifies leadership competencies
and will develop leadership education and formation models in various contexts
outside the walls of traditional seminaries and parish ministry.
Beyond
These Walls is itself a racially and culturally diverse, women-led collective,
unique in the landscape of theological education. In addition, BTW is uniquely
positioned to provide leadership training in this context because it will
collectively bring wide-ranging expertise to the formational environment.
Accomplished
theological educators lead BTW and represent Black, White, African, Latinx,
Indigenous, and Korean backgrounds. “We are straight and LGBTQ and teach in
urban, suburban, and rural contexts, across the spectrum of traditional
theological disciplines. We are academically trained artists, activists,
administrators, church leaders, and theological educators,” said Rev. Adriene
Thorne, of The First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn.
Thorne
continued, “We undertake this work with the conviction that historically
marginalized communities have enormous and untapped wisdom that will be
transformational to the church and the world. When both lay and ordained
leaders are resourced and empowered to live out the transforming love of Christ
in effective, adaptive, and faith-filled ways, we will be helping to shape a
future in which the Church is freed to do more of its prophetic,
justice-focused and meaning-making work in the world.”
The
following members currently comprise the collective of Beyond These Walls:
The
Rev. Dr. April Stace, General Theological Seminary; The Episcopal Diocese of
Northern Michigan
The
Rev. Dr. Carla Roland Guzman, General Theological Seminary; The Episcopal
Diocese of New York
Dr.
Oluwatomisin Oredein, Brite Divinity School; Black Church Studies Program
The
Rev. Dr. Jee Hei Park, Seminary of the Southwest; Greater New Jersey Annual
Conference of The United Methodist Church
The
Rev. Dr. Hillary Raining, General Theological Seminary; The Hive; Episcopal
Diocese of Pennsylvania
Dr.
Lea Schweitz, Nature120; Yorkfield Presbyterian Church
The
Rev. Adriene Thorne, The First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn
The
Rev. Dr. Lisa Weaver, Columbia Theological Seminary; Calvin Institute of
Christian Worship
The
Rev. Canon Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan